


Pastel M&Ms

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23279731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Let’s see the Guardians as a band of some kind.North on the drums (come on, look at those arms!), Bunnymund on rhythm guitar, Tooth as bassist and singer, and Pitch as their lead guitarist.Of course, Pitch was forced to leave the band when he began to lose sight of the music and become obsessed with the drinking, drugs, and sex of the backstage life. He doesn’t care because he was the most famous one and he’s still got all of his fame to carry him around and keep him in the party scene, even if he wants to get back at his former band for hurting his career.The band has to stage auditions at the command of their manager, MiM, and the end up with high school drop-out, 18 year old Jack Frost, who can wail just as well on his guitar as Pitch. Considering that Pitch was his hero and he’d do anything to meet him...[cut for length]"*GASP* there’s no Sandy in this prompt! I remedied that. Sandy’s the keyboardist. He baffles everyone; he doesn’t really have the reach or handspan for it but he does it anyway.Anyway, so, it’s Jack’s first show. Pitch shows up, presumably to sabotage it, and then, well, someone goes missing. Probably not to be sabotaged, exactly.
Relationships: Pitch Black/Sanderson Mansnoozie
Kudos: 7
Collections: Blacksand Short Fics





	Pastel M&Ms

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 11/23/2015.
> 
> Here's the rest of the prompt: "even when his bandmates tell him to stay away from him.
> 
> Until Pitch shows up backstage at a show. (Anon can take this wherever they wish. Would be very interested to see Bunny/Tooth as established, if possible, but is not needed.)"

“Jack’s first show,” Bunny says, in tones of one giving a dire prophecy. It would be more effective if it wasn’t the third or fourth time he had said the exact same thing over the past several hours.  
  
“And what’s the worst that could happen?” Tooth says with a yawn. “I suppose the worst thing would be us all simultaneously forgetting our songs and how to play our instruments, but that’s not going to happen. So, if something goes wrong, it won’t be the absolute worst, and we can all relax.”  
  
They’re hanging out on stage in the darkened auditorium, trying to get a feel for the place before anyone else shows up. Or, at least, Tooth and Bunny are guarding Sandy while he does so, because his process of getting a feel for the place consists of smoking a joint while lying on top of the grand piano that he insists on having the venue or production company provide, instead of deigning to use a much more portable keyboard. It had gotten the band in trouble, once, though thankfully all the trouble had stuck to Pitch, and he had left not too long afterwards.  
  
“There are still plenty of realistic worst things,” Bunny says. Tooth sighs and motions for him to stand closer to Sandy’s cloud of smoke. “I’m serious,” he continues, not moving. “Pitch could show up. Jack really admires him. He’ll believe anything the bastard says about us.”  
  
“Jack will believe anything that puts him on stage in front of thousands of people.” Tooth shrugs. “And soon enough it’ll be clear that Pitch seriously needs to just chill out. And if he tries to kidnap him, I’ll punch him, really. But I don’t know if it’s really that likely that Pitch would show up.”  
  
“Do you really think he’d try to kidnap Jack?” Sandy interjects. “I mean, he doesn’t even know him.”  
  
“I don’t really see how that follows,” Bunny says.  
  
Sandy looks like he’s going to do his best to explain, but before he can sufficiently gather his thoughts from wherever they’ve drifted, North and Jack make their way noisily over, fresh from their day out in the city. Their misadventures easily take control of the conversation, and while Bunny normally doesn’t mind this too much, the enigmatic smile Sandy gives him before he rolls off the grand piano and wanders off to their dressing room worries him in a way that the talk of kidnapping did not.  
  


* * *

  
  
At first, the concert goes smoothly. The hall is filled, no one forgets how to play their instruments, and Jack proves himself to be just as talented as Pitch ever was, which, considering that he’s also about fifteen years younger, bodes extremely well for his future with the band.  
  
Yet Bunny still can’t quite shake the feeling that something is off, and when he, North, and Sandy leave the stage for a quick break while Tooth and Jack perform a duet, it turns out that he is, unfortunately, right. “Pitch is here,” North says, as soon as they’re backstage. “Manny spotted him.” He shows the text to the other two and Bunny grinds his teeth.  
  
“I thought this place was supposed to have security,” Bunny says. “We got the fucking pastel M&Ms in the dressing rooms, how did we get that but _not_ security?”  
  
“I wonder what he has planned,” Sandy says musingly, as if Pitch isn’t about to sabotage their show like he’s always threatened.  
  
“Who knows! But Manny says he has already been in touch with the people in charge of the power to the auditorium, so that is being watched.” North types furiously away on his phone, while Bunny preemptively takes some aspirin against whatever headache is about to happen.  
  
“Oh, we can make enough sound without power, can’t we?” Sandy asks. “I mean, I don’t want to hurt the piano, but…”  
  
“Tell them to guard the fuses with their lives,” Bunny says to North. “We’ve never tested Jack on acoustic and if Pitch isn’t going to take him away he’s going to try to make him look obviously inferior. I knew he relied too much on electric stunts, I knew it, I knew it…”  
  
“You really meant that? I thought you were just being grumpy,” North says absently as he sends even more texts.  
  
“No, I…where’d Sandy go?” Bunny looks around, baffled. “He was just here! We only have two verses left before we’ve got to go back out and let Tooth take a break.”  
  
North finally looks up from his phone. “Sandy has never missed an entrance before, even if his head is in the clouds,” he says.  
  
“But he’s never disappeared before, either,” Bunny points out.  
  
“You don’t think…”  
  
It would have been impossible to edit Bunny’s next statement for radio play.  
  


* * *

  
  
After making a trio into a duet and, later, relying on Tooth’s extemporaneous bullshitting skills to produce something to placate the crowd regarding what happened to the Guardians’ keyboardist, the four remaining Guardians meet in the dressing room. The pastel M&Ms have been stolen, but no one is really surprised. Jack, though, does have some more surprising news. He had seen Pitch on his break. He had followed him, hoping to get an autograph, but as soon as he had spotted Jack, he had sprinted away out the back to a waiting limo. A waiting limo where, unless a lot more people with gold shoes and feet that didn’t touch a car’s floor when seated were around, Sandy had been waiting. “So, uh, I thought it was legit if Sandy was there?” Jack says, even as the other Guardians react with varying degrees of horror and amusement.  
  
“This had better have been a sacrifice to have prevented him from doing something else, or I’m going to murder them both if they don’t get each other first!” Bunny exclaims. “No contact! It was in the settlement agreement!”  
  
“Yes, but, Sandy is quite serious in his philosophy about not ascribing reality to words on paper,” Tooth points out. “Which doesn’t prevent this from being a dick move. We have a flight very early in the morning tomorrow.”  
  
“Maybe it is the reality of words on paper that Pitch is taking him for!” North says. “I mean, after last June, we should have been expecting this. And then, especially in this city…”  
  
“All right. Make note of this forever: I hate Vegas,” Bunny says.  
  
“North!” Tooth’s eyes are wide with alarm. “If that’s what they’re doing Pitch won’t give him back for the rest of the tour, and also I think Pitch will have created a—a Gordian knot of contractual problems! We have to find Sandy and figure out what’s going on, immediately!”  
  
“Hi, I’m lost,” Jack says. “What’s the deal here? Sandy’s like, an established member of the band, you can’t tell him to stay away from another adult, right? And what could your hated ex-guitarist do that would cause that many problems?”  
  
“Get married!”  
  
“Please, North, stop sounding like you’re going to bake them a cake to celebrate,” Bunny says, and takes more aspirin. “I need some fresh air.”  
  


* * *

  
  
He returns to the dressing room at a dead run. “There’s a trail of M&M’s down the street from where Jack says the limo was. This is ridiculous, absurd, and honestly I already feel motion sick—North, we’ve got to follow that trail.”  
  
“Yes!” shouts North. “This is going to be epic! I knew we would need that red car for something!”

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> #what happens in Vegas is going to COMPLICATE ALL OUR LIVES; MANSNOOZIE
> 
> bowlingforgerbils reblogged this from gretchensinister: #this is adorable #no offense but how dare the prompter leave out Sandy #i like where you went with this gretchen.


End file.
